COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio waded into uncharted territory Friday when it announced plans to switch from the usual three-drug cocktail used to execute inmates to a one-drug method.
The switch came two months after an Ohio inmate walked away from a botched execution attempt, and it is almost certain to get tied up in appeals and draw the attention of other states that have long used the three-drug method.
“I chose to do it because I’m getting sued either way,” Terry Collins, Ohio prisons director, said Friday.
Under the three-drug method, the first drug knocks out an inmate, the second paralyzes him and the third stops his heart — a process that death- penalty opponents argue is excruciatingly painful if the first drug doesn’t work.
The single-drug technique amounts to an overdose of anesthesia, Collins said.
Death-penalty opponents hailed Collins’ decision as making executions more humane but expressed reservations about using an untested method. The same drug is commonly used to euthanize pets.
Richard Dieter, director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, noted the new practice would essentially be an experiment performed on inmates. “They’re human subjects, and they’re not willingly part of this,” Dieter said.
Ohio’s decision, filed in papers Friday in U.S. District Court, said it would switch to a single injection of thiopental sodium into a vein. A separate two-drug muscle injection will be available as a backup.
With the change, Ohio also said it was ready to resume executions, on hold in the state since the unsuccessful attempt Sept. 15 to put to death Romell Broom, who raped and killed a 14-year-old girl in 1984.
